The number of fentanyl and heroin deaths was down in first half of 2016, but it’s not a trend, officials say

While statistics show that in the first half of 2016, the number of people in Manatee, Sarasota and DeSoto counties whose deaths were caused by drugs or had drugs in their system when they died decreased, officials say the number of fatalities could spike as summer begins.

This month, the Florida Medical Examiners Commission released its 2016 interim report for the drugs identified in deceased persons. The report looks at toxicology reports from deaths in the first six months of 2016, identifying the drugs found in a person’s system when they died and if they were determined to be the person’s cause of death.

The number of deaths in the 12th Judicial District, which is made up of Manatee, Sarasota and DeSoto counties, where heroin and fentanyl were listed as the cause of death dropped between the first six months of 2015 and the same time period in 2016.

Manatee County Sheriff Rick Wells said the report doesn’t mean the trend is going to continue.

“In my opinion, the number (of deaths) is still extremely high, which still confirms the addiction issues we have here and statewide,” Wells said.

In the first half of 2015, fentanyl was listed as causing 42 deaths in the 12th Judicial District — the highest among the state’s 25 judicial districts — and being present in four deaths in the district, according to reports. For all of 2015, fentanyl caused 111 deaths in the district, according to a year-end report.

A year later, the district dropped to eighth place, with fentanyl listed as the cause of 27 deaths in the first six months of 2016 and as present in four deaths. The report for all of 2016 won’t be released until later this year.

A similar drop was recorded in heroin-related deaths.

In the first half of 2015, there were 29 deaths caused by heroin, with the drug present in five other deaths. A year later in the 12th District, there were 12 deaths with heroin in combination with other drugs.

In the entire year of 2015, heroin caused 61 deaths in the district, a year-end report showed.

Law enforcement is not ready to declare victory in the battle against the opioid epidemic. Citing what happened the past two years, they concede they may see an increase in drug-related deaths as summer approaches.

“We’ve had ebbs and flows, but it’s still bad. We’re still responding to way too many overdoses and way too many fatal overdoses,” said sheriff’s office spokesman Dave Bristow. “We monitor stats and, again, you have periods of times when it seems to get better then it shoots back up again. The summer months, it seems to shoot up.”

If the trend continues this year, Bristow said they’ll keep working.

“It’s impossible to predict what’s going to happen, and you can only keep doing what you’re doing. Sooner or later it’s going to get better, we’re confident of that. We just hope it’s sooner,” Bristow said.

District 12 Medical Examiner Dr. Russell Vega said in both 2015 and 2016, there was a “big explosion of cases” that came in during the summer.

He said “many more” of the deaths recorded by the statistics are from Manatee County than Sarasota. DeSoto County makes up about 5 percent of the cases he works in the three-county district.

“We have most of the data for the entire year and the exact trend has held true. We’ve had many more deaths in second half (of the year) than first half,” Vega said.

What caused that summer increase in 2016, Vega said, was the emergence of carfentanyl — an opioid 10,000 times more powerful than morphine. Reports from prior to that time wouldn’t account for the drug, since they didn’t know to test for it, he said.

For Centerstone of Florida CEO Melissa Larkin-Skinner, the decrease in deaths in the first half of last year doesn’t necessarily denote that there are fewer people struggling with addiction.

She said demand for Centerstone’s services for addiction treatment are at an all-time high.

“The reality is that people are desperate, nobody wants to be addicted, so they’re going to try not to be,” Larkin-Skinner said. “But in the middle of addiction, it’s hard to know that.”

In the past 10 months, Centerstone has tripled the number of people prescribed medications such as Suboxone, Larkin-Skinner said.

The region of Florida with the highest number of fentanyl and heroin deaths was West Palm Beach and Palm Beach County, where 96 people died from heroin and 156 from fentanyl.

The deadliest drugs in Florida between January and June 2016 were fentanyl, responsible for 704 deaths in the state, and cocaine, which caused 643 deaths, according to the report.

The number of deaths caused by cocaine have also dropped in District 12. In the first six months of 2015, cocaine was the cause of 44 deaths and just 24 in the same period of 2016.

But Vega cautioned that cocaine deaths have also been on the rise, but it’s not just cocaine by itself — it’s being mixed with carfentanyl and other opioids, he said.

This story was originally published May 12, 2017 at 4:16 PM with the headline "The number of fentanyl and heroin deaths was down in first half of 2016, but it’s not a trend, officials say."